


My Soul Responding

by Shenanigans (PaintedDreams)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Episode: s07e23 Extreme Measures, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 12:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15685536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedDreams/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: Set during 'Extreme Measures'. Kira's POV as she says goodbye to the man she loves.





	My Soul Responding

**Author's Note:**

> I was going through my list of prompts and one sentence caught my eye and actually inspired me enough to get writing again, so here we are haha. Let me know what you think!

Decades of oppression, of war, of fighting, had taught Nerys to be grateful every time she left the infirmary. Shrugging off the antiseptic smell as though it were just another filthy rag, eyes adjusting to dimmer light, limbs stretching, back straightening. Departing from the infirmary was a blessing. It meant she’d survived. For someone who strongly believed she’d been living on borrowed time since she was twelve and first picked up a phaser, walking out those doors was another beautiful sign that the prophets weren’t done with her yet.

When Bareil died, when Jadzia died, Kira had near enough flown away she was fleeing so fast. Another moment spent between biobeds and scanners might have killed her too, her breath shortening, tears falling, ears echoing with the Kai’s kind words or Worf’s primal howl. These rooms were not a place she entered freely.

But now, looking down at her lovers desiccated form, staring into eyes that try to hide how much he hurts, Nerys realises leaving might just be the thing that kills her.

_Prophets, he looks so frail,_ she thinks, as tremors shake his torso. _So weak, so unlike my Odo._

Kira tightens her grasp on his hand, the words he’s asked of her rising to her lips, even as her Pagh rebels against the very idea of saying goodbye. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen! She wants to scream, to rage at this last, bitter, injustice. It’s meant to be her on this bed, white haired and feeble; her life slipping away as he grieves. He’s a changeling! He has centuries left, millennia spanning before him! _Why him, oh Prophets, why him?!_

“I love you, Odo,” she chokes out, throat sealing around her most painful truth.

The agony in his eyes seems to retreat for a moment, born back by words he could never tire of hearing, the certainty that what they have is real and true and should have lasted forever, had they only had the chance.

“I love you, Nerys.”

And then she tears her eyes away from him, hands wrenched free, heart stuttering as she forces one foot in front of the other, ripping herself from her anchor, dragging half her Pagh from the room as the rest stays with him. It’s his now, forever and always.

Leaving the infirmary has never hurt like this, never ate at her heart like a bloodthirsty Klingon, or seared her lungs like neurocine gas. She can see the grieving faces of her friends ahead, can see abandoned hope in the slump of their shoulders, concern in the tilt of their brows. Only Julian offers a smile, half-hearted and sorrowful, but with just enough arrogance that she knows he hasn’t given up. He’ll fight, for Odo, and for the federation.

It’s time she does the same. Cardassia is waiting, and the Colonel has orders.

She’s said farewell, her friends goodbyes murmured through hugs and grasped hands. Garak follows her, a ghostly presence watching her back with sharp eyes and quick reflexes, a most unlikely ally. Damar waits for them, waits for the carnage they will rain upon the Dominion, until none are left who wish them harm. She’s going forward, forward to victory or a swift death.

And in a room, on a station, surrounded by space and so very alone, her lover lies. His life ebbs, and her soul longs to follow.


End file.
